Site Mobile Navigation

A Newcomer Is the Winner In Newark's Runoff Election

A 29-year-old Rhodes scholar and newcomer to Newark upset the four-term Councilman in the city's Central Ward today in a runoff election that most said touched on some deep discontent with established politicians and mobilized long-discouraged voters.

With more than 80 percent of the districts reporting tonight, Cory Booker, a cum laude graduate of Stanford University and a graduate of Oxford University and Yale Law School, defeated George Branch, 69, who for the last 16 years had represented the district where the 1967 Newark riots started. Unofficial returns indicated that Mr. Booker had about 55 percent of the vote.

The runoff was necessary because neither candidate got a majority of the vote in the nonpartisan municipal elections on May 12.

In other runoffs today, the three incumbents running for re-election to the four at-large Council seats that were up for grabs won easily. They were Gayle Chaneyfield-Jenkins, Luis Quintana and Donald Tucker. They were joined by a newcomer, Bessie Walker.

In the city's West Ward, an Essex County college professor, Mamie Bridgeforth, seemed headed for victory over Patricia Bradford with 60 percent of the vote in nearly complete returns.

But it was the race between Mr. Booker and Mr. Branch that attracted the most attention and seemed to test whether residents of the Central Ward, which has seen much redevelopment and change in demographics in the last decade, would stay with the incumbent, who had the support of Mayor Sharpe James, or strike out in a new direction with a untested candidate.

It was pandemonium at the Booker headquarters as car horns blared and the sirens of a campaign van sounded to announce their candidate's victory. Into the celebration strolled Mr. Branch and his wife, Joyce, who had walked from their own campaign headquarters around the corner to concede defeat and congratulate Mr. Booker.

It was a move that seemed uncharacteristic in a campaign that had turned bitter, with anonymous literature and angry charges in the final days.

Indeed, addressing his supporters moments earlier in his headquarters, Mr. Branch had been anything but conciliatory. He labeled Mr. Booker ''an outsider'' who was controlled by whites who had abandoned the city in its time of need but were now trying to gain a foothold as things were improving.

But standing next to Mr. Booker later, Mr. Branch was gracious and even a bit jocular as he said of the race and the anonymous campaign literature that ''I tried to win it clean, but it was hard.'' The two embraced.

''I was deeply touched,'' Mr. Booker said. ''He showed great dignity in defeat and in passing the torch to me.''

In an interview, Mr. Booker vowed -- as he had during the campaign -- to accept only the $55,000 salary for the part-time Council member's job and turn down such perks as a car with a telephone, which he called ''a disgusting use of city finances.''

Mr. Booker also repeated his pledge to account for every penny of the $18,000 budget each Council member gets.

In analyzing the vote, both the Booker and Branch camps agreed on what had happened. Mr. Booker's nontraditional technique of knocking on nearly every door in the district surprised the Branch forces, which worked with the traditional political organizations and churches in the district.